


vacillation

by reogulus



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Behavior, Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Missing Scene, Season/Series 02, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24102241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reogulus/pseuds/reogulus
Summary: She thinks about what was done to her, how in a moment, everything that makes a person real can unravel and come undone, in a split hair of a difference.
Relationships: Kendall Roy/Siobhan "Shiv" Roy, Rhea Jarrell & Siobhan "Shiv" Roy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	vacillation

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly canon-compliant though somewhat canon-divergent, with one account of sexualization of a minor, contains references to canon plot lines from 1.09 to 2.10.

* * *

You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.  
_ DANIEL 5:27_

* * *

Shiv is the first to leave the small boat. The bulky boots, sorely mismatched with the dainty cut and blush pink of her dress, are starting to feel awkward on her feet. She goes up the same way she came down to the moat, clutching the woolen shawl against the windchill with one hand and holding the flashlight with the other. The stone steps are low and slippery, all jagged and shiny with moss under the moonlight. Shiv looks over her shoulder; the boat is obscured from her sight now, but her brothers have not followed her. Roman is probably all but consumed with FOMO now that dad has flown in and talked to Kendall first. It’s fun in small doses at their age, but Roman is always the one to take child’s play too far.

She reaches the top of the steps, taps her heels against a rock a few times to shake off the mud from the bottom of the boots, careful not to get any splattered on the hem of her dress. The last of the guests are pouring out from the nearby doors in a scattered stream of handshakes, nods and murmurs of conversation, but it’s all quiet from where she’s standing. Shiv can’t help but smile. She feels too light on her feet, like she’s giddy to go dancing in the grand hall once it’s emptied out, like she’s still feeling the buzz from the three fingers of bourbon she poured herself in the billiards room where Gerri gave her those looks of tired resignation. Fuck Nate and fuck America; this is the wedding gift she’s giving herself, from herself, the feeling of power, tangible in her palms. It sits squarely and steadily in her stomach along with the alcohol, keeping her feeling warm all over.

A gust of wind passes, sending her shivers under the shawl. Shiv starts to walk faster, the boots growing increasingly uncomfortable on her feet as she struggles to remember where she’d left her heels and put these on instead. There are a few stragglers left milling about the courtyard, some smokers. Shiv glances over them mindlessly until her mind puts a name to one of the faces illuminated under the pot lights. Rhea Jarrell, with a coat over her evening gown, standing near a flowerbed of gardenias, talking to Frank. She makes her way towards them, boots and all.

“Hey,” Shiv calls out. Rhea smiles warmly, as she and Frank hug. Not long after the customary congratulations and gratitude are exchanged, he excuses himself to take a phone call. Rhea turns to look at her, and Shiv feels compelled to say something.

“I just wanted to come over and apologize for my dad’s arrival tonight, I was totally blindsided too. I know you had that whole back and forth with our wedding planner about the plus-one invite, what’s appropriate and what not,” she tries to add hand gestures as if to imitate the flow of emails exchanged, but it feels totally off as she’s still holding the flashlight. “Anyways, I just wanted to check in and say that I’m really happy that you are here and I hope you enjoyed yourself tonight despite, you know, my dad. I can ask someone to be on Logan lookout duty for you, if that helps for tomorrow.”

Rhea smiles, close-mouthed this time. Her gaze shifts down to Shiv’s boots, then back up again. “That’s kind of you, Siobhan. But I think I’m old enough to go without a chaperone.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Shiv nods. It wasn’t her idea to invite Rhea, but her name got flagged when a guest from DC submitted her name as his plus-one, and it just so happened that Charlotte texted Shiv about it after the phone call from Marcia that night. Her stepmother fucked her like a stone cold bitch on Logan’s order, which Shiv knows she was all too happy to oblige. As Nate tossed and turned on the bed behind her, Shiv thumbed open her phone, tapped on the notification and replied in the affirmative. It took barely more than a minute to dispose of the matter. In that half-awake state, in that anonymous and bland hotel room, she did it for the same reason she eventually gave in and slept with Nate: to get away from herself. Inviting Rhea Jarrell to her wedding gave Shiv a reason not to dwell on the embarrassment and rage she’d felt towards herself, for feeling that sharp sting in her nose as tears risked dampening her eyelashes. She would indulge, not punish herself. And inviting the CEO of her father’s white whale of nearly two decades to her wedding is as grand as an indulgence can get. Even now, and especially now, she wants to see the look on Logan’s face when Rhea bumps into him.

“I heard about your mother’s cheeky little icebreaker,” Rhea leans into her. She sounds amused, or concerned, or both. Shiv doesn’t want to read it too closely. “It’s all quite Roy, isn’t it? I go to London a few times every year to see theater, but it’s not quite as up close and interactive in comparison.”

“Oh, just, family hijinks,” Shiv laughs. “I’m glad to entertain.”

“Well, I’m sure it will be a lovely service tomorrow.” Rhea sounds genuine; Shiv is genuinely not sure.

“So, Rhea, here’s a question—and feel free to humor me, or don’t—what do you think of him? My dad. From one legacy media corporation CEO to another.”

“Your father and his business will outlive many people, Siobhan. And many people in the world might believe the lifespan to be undeserved, but that’s besides the point. And I’m just a hired gun, so—there’s no point in comparing us.”

“My dad is the roach that can crawl out of Hiroshima, you mean.”

Rhea turns to meet Shiv’s eyes—there’s an almost mischievous glint to the look in her eye. Neither of them moves, but it feels like they are starting to circle one another, like strange beasts in the night. A mutual assessment.

“Is it a Roy tradition for the bride to wear work boots on the eve before her wedding?” Rhea nods at her feet. Shiv can feel herself growing numb by the second, from her knees down; she’d put on the boots without socks on earlier. It would have been fine, except she’s starting to feel sober.

“It’s fine,” she replies, holding back a sniffle. “It’s, uh, no, I was just meeting my brothers down by the water. We used to play over there sometimes, as kids.” The lie comes effortlessly to her. The truth is, they weren’t allowed to stay in the castle as kids, but then Caroline met airhead Rory and the rules became malleable for the most part during their teens. Shiv smoked her first cigarette down by the moat, chased it down with a shot of Smirnoff. It felt even better, getting away with it afterwards.

“Well, I’m sure it was lovely,” Rhea says, looking at her watch. “My car just got here, so this is good night. Thank you again for inviting me.”

“Of course, see you tomorrow,” Shiv shakes Rhea’s hand. Her palm is warmer to the touch than Shiv expected, or perhaps Shiv is closer to freezing than she thinks.

When Shiv makes it back into the castle, her toes are both clammy and on the verge of falling off. She takes them off in the hallway, asks one of the staff to get her a pair of slippers. There will be someone to find her shoes in the morning, clean the dirt off the hem of her dress.

She reaches for her phone as she waits barefoot on a bench. The screen lights up with a string of notifications, missed calls from Tom, Nate, Tom again, in that order. An email from Gerri with the subject line _As discussed_ , a copy of an email addressed to the top minds of ATN attached. A text from Gil: _join me and Logan for a hillside walk, tomorrow morning at 7:30 -GE._

Shiv sets her phone beside her hip, face down. With her knees drawn to her chin, she wraps her hands around her feet, cold fingers tucked under colder toes. As she closes her eyes, it’s back on the tip of her tongue: the invasion of smoke into her lungs, the sharp burn of vodka in her stomach. That first taste of power. She draws a deep breath, and holds it in.

✤

She and Rhea are brought together again, in less than a month’s time. It’s like kismet, but worse: it’s dad.

Shiv’s life has shifted course by then, to say the least, and in no part due to getting married. But sitting with Rhea Jarrell in the Waystar panic room alongside Logan and Kendall—well, that’s a hell of a pop quiz on her first day in. There should be a joke in here somewhere with the pop of the gunshot that sent them all here, but Shiv resists stooping to Roman’s level. Like Rhea said, they will always have the panic room. The room in which Shiv felt more like an outsider than the CEO of a rival-slash-target corporation, out of step with her father and brother’s coordinated dance of bidding against themselves for a deal that Shiv is forcing down her own throat. Wearing her clumsy work boots, overconfident and drunk, oblivious to it all.

The invitation to Tern Haven is forwarded from Frank, to Logan, to the family. Shiv is added to the chain at some point, shifting lines from BCC to CC. She knows she’ still flying blind, regardless. Weeks have passed, and details from that day at Waystar are still taking up too much space in her thoughts, in her shower, in her bed. The way Kendall’s voice drops ever so slightly, lowers his head to look up at dad. How Colin dogs Kendall’s every move, sometimes matching his steps more closely than Jess. What he said and did to her, the hug, in dad’s office. It’s like she’s been asked to put together a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded.

Shiv has thought a lot about what Gil said at the wedding, about her father carrying his own gravity, how that gravitational force can bend the courses of everyone’s trajectories, if he wanted to pull them closer and hold them there. Kendall becoming a shell of snorting coke, gutting Vaulter, stealing vape fluids. The next to-do on the list may as well be self-castration.

Gil was wrong about one thing, though. To call Logan a planet is an understatement—he was the star, the supernova, and now the black hole. It’s too late, he’s pulled Kendall in, and now Kendall has collapsed inward. And it feels as though he’s used his last breath to call to Shiv for help in dad’s office. To take care of him, in the center of the black hole.

Shiv doesn’t know if she can do so from a safe distance. Is there such a thing as a safe distance from dad? She’s tried, for ten years, to answer that question—there’s no telling if she’s getting closer or not.

✤

“My god, your hair. Hacking it all off to become a new woman, I see. I do hope your husband appreciates the effort.”

Caroline says it as they hug, so her voice travels to Shiv from behind the shell of her ear. The sting is unmistakable, a backhanded compliment in the most literal sense.

Shiv pulls away and says, “good to see you too, mom—you look well.” The effort it takes to pull the corners of her mouth upward is nothing short of palpable. They are sitting down for tea at the poshest hotel in London, but Shiv can’t say she has the appetite—not now, not for this.

She hates being in the UK this time of the year, it’s late fall and the wet chill clings to her as soon as she steps off the jet, but it’s tradition for her to meet Caroline for “mother-daughter quality time” some time in her birthday month. What makes it worse this year is that her shoulder-length bob is a poor substitute for her long curls in the department of body heat retention.

The terms of the requirement used to be her mother’s date of birth on the dot, then relaxed to the week, then the month. She was sixteen. The joint custody agreement for Shiv, with all its remaining shelf life of two years, was re-opened for the last time for mom and dad to have it out for one last hurrah, to “get it out of our system”, as her mother explained it. Shiv fought tooth and nail to stay in America for the entire school year, which begot this punishment to be exacted throughout her adulthood. Battles had been waged, fought, lost and won for nearly two decades, tears often spilled in lieu of blood. The archaic, brutal emotional trench warfare of it all means that she’d been advancing and gaining territory, but every victory nonetheless feels like a bitter defeat. Such is the cost.

“How is married life suiting you?”

“It suits me fine, thank you. We’ve been busy lately, but, uh,” Shiv tucks away some hair behind her right ear, its shortness temporarily distracting her. “Tom and I are thinking we might get a second dog. Mondale could use a playmate.”

That’s item number one crossed off of the list of topics suitable for conversation, specific enough to dodge accusations of not making a genuine effort but still inconsequential so as to avoid igniting any power kegs. Shiv hasn’t been able to come up with a list of decent length on the flight, so the safety cushion is on the thinner side this year. All her thoughts have been occupied by the fear of letting it slip—the offer from the Hamptons, spending her days at Waystar, the late-night conversations with dad. She can’t be sure that Caroline doesn’t already know—or doesn’t already know too much. It’s been weeks since the ATN lockdown and Logan has kept her sitting on a leash. Anxiety has been eating at her, to say the least; she knows her mother will smell the blood in the water as soon as the conversation veers that way. She will give away nothing.

“Two dogs would be quite a handful when you have a newborn in the house,” Caroline nibbles on a piece of strawberry, waves her hand with a slight flick of her bony wrist. “Though I’m sure you won’t be spending too much time with either the dogs or the baby, right? You are nothing if not a career-driven woman.”

Shiv takes a bite from a sandwich, chews as slowly as she can manage to buy time to think, washes it down with tea. “Well, Gil’s campaign is going full speed ahead, and there will be lots of exciting opportunities, so here’s hopin’.”

Caroline smiles, wide but close-mouthed, like Shiv walked right into whatever she got waiting for her. “Your brother told me you were let go. Shame that you could no longer plot to kill your father vicariously through your candidate, I’m sure you were very good at doing all that.”

Right, of course Roman told her, fucking mommy’s boy. “I don’t know what you heard from Roman, but I actually quit. And, well, you know, it’s never quite as black and white as how it seems from the outside. I’m sure you don’t watch the programming, but Gil has been an asset to ATN’s ratings. I don’t need to take sides, I just need to make sure they can both win.”

Caroline nods. Her piercing gaze is trained on Shiv’s face as she listens, and Shiv feels her spine stiffen in the chair. “Tom must be happy to see you at home more. Surely a break is good now, you’d worked through your own wedding and cancelled the honeymoon soon as daddy summoned you. Though I’m sure, a hard worker like you is doing lots of extracurriculars to keep yourself busy, aren’t you?”

Shiv’s face twitches, near imperceptibly to anyone who doesn’t know her. The image of the actor from Willa’s play immediately comes to her mind’s eye, the greedy eagerness with which she squeezed his bicep through that thin undershirt in that small, dingy Brooklyn apartment. Heat rises to her cheeks, before she can do or say anything. She clears her throat. “There’s been a lot of stuff keeping me busy, uh, dad. Dad gave me something.”

“He asked you to come in?” Caroline’s face darkens, suddenly like rain clouds overshadowing the feeble autumn sun. And her tone, though inquisitive, is tinted like an indictment.

“N-no, not exactly, not—officially,” Shiv shakes her head, the trimmed ends of her hair tickling the side of her chin with the motion. Her head is spinning as fast as her heart pounds. She pushes her palms down on her thighs, hard enough to feel the pressure, the squeeze against the seat of the chair. She’s cornered, not even fifteen minutes in. “Dad just asked me, uh, to keep an eye on Connor. He’s tossing his hat into the ring for the presidential race, so, you know, I’m the best person to watch out for him there.”

Caroline’s expression doesn’t change, neither does her gaze shift, as if she didn’t hear Shiv. “But if he asks you? Now?”

Shiv exhales, it comes out after a short, breathless laugh. She breaks her gaze away from Caroline. “Mom, please. Even if he did, I wouldn’t trust him. What’s more I—I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d want with Waystar, where I should be, how I’d even start.”

Caroline smiles again, this time her eyes arch into half-moons. It could almost be construed as warmth. “You will always think I don’t know about any of this, Siobhan, but I do. If he asks—it will not be anything short of the top job for you. Why would you want anything else from him?”

Shiv takes another sip of her tea, but her mouth feels drier still. The question requires no answer. It may as well be her, laid bare and spread out on this table right now, for her mother to nibble and pick apart. 

“Have you talked to Kendall lately?” She has to change the subject, for fear that her feet will carry her, bolting towards the door against her better judgment, if the current track of conversation continues.

Caroline hums, a non-committal non-answer to convey non-interest. “I’m just trying to warn you, dear, he’d strung along poor Kendall long enough, and he’s probably getting bored of him. No fun in squeezing a juiced lemon. High time for a rotation now, the way I see it. My gut tells me it’s going to be your turn, sooner than you’d see it coming. But you never like to listen to me, so I’ll leave it at that.” She throws up both her hands, palms facing out. Always a mockery and an accusation.

“Thank you for that very helpful prophecy, mom. I love getting my tea leaves read whenever we spend time together. You know, it could be Roman. He’d make more sense.” Shiv almost feels nauseated to hear those words leave her mouth, not feeling sick from blatantly lying but from lying so poorly. She can only imagine what her mother must think of her in this moment, this charade she’s cobbled together.

“You know the reason why he is my favourite, right?” Caroline reaches over, under the table, to put her hand on Shiv’s forearm. Shiv feels the heat emanating from her palm through the sleeve of her sweater. The hand may as well be wrapped around her throat in a death grip as Caroline says, “because try as Roman may, my darling boy, I’ve never had to fight your father for him, and I never will. There’s something to be said for that kind of security, isn’t there? Look at the man you chose to marry.”

Shiv balls her hands into fists. She stands up, the chair dragging across the floor with an ugly sound. Caroline looks up at her, smiling.

“I’m going to use the ladies’ room,” she says it too fast and the words come tumbling out of her mouth in a jumbled mess. When she walks away from the table with her phone in hand, her pace starts to grow unsteady.

Shiv takes a deep breath in front of the restroom mirror. No new notifications on her phone. She refreshes her email; no updates in the Tern Haven thread pinned to the top. It’s just Tom, and his well-meaning excitement for the goddamn “plan” that Shiv wired into him since the inception of their relationship. He put the idea in her head before her departure to England, _do you think Logan will announce, you know, when we sit down with the Pierces? ‘Cause, you know, Frank told us at the meeting—Nan Pierce has put out feelers about your dad’s succession plan._ The more he says it like it’s a sure thing, the more she feels she’s teetering on the edge. Gerri hasn’t returned any of her calls. Frank has remained tight-lipped on her days of shadowing, boring Shiv to tears with financial reporting and fiscal planning. He’s made himself totally comfortable within Logan’s vise grip and is therefore of no use to her. The bridges that Kendall burned on his whims have left her little room to maneuver, and everyone has gone amnesiac so conveniently again.

Shiv rubs her hands together, grimacing at the clamminess of her sweat. She can’t keep running her palms down her pants, Caroline will surely notice. Taking a deep breath, Shiv pumps the soap dispenser vigorously. The tap is turned on; she wishes the flow of her thoughts can go on or off just as easily.

The phone lights up with a new notification as soon as she works the soap lather all over her hands. She strains her neck to look down at the lock screen on the countertop, taken by unthinking eagerness again. It’s a missed call from Logan.

Shiv draws in a sharp breath. “Fuck,” she says out loud in abject horror, rinses her hands clean as fast as she can manage without getting wet spots on her blouse. She calls him back with tiny bits of soap suds clinging to the back of her wrist.

“Pinky,” Logan answers after three rings.

“Dad,” Shiv tucks a hair behind her ear. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing really,” his tone is on the lighter side, “just wanted to check in. You’re still coming to Tern Haven with us on Sunday?”

“Uh,” she stammers for half a second before stopping herself. “Yes, I’ll meet everyone there on Sunday morning like the email said. It’s 10am, right?”

“Right. Are you sure you have enough time for the road, from the airfield?”

“Yes, that won’t be an issue, dad.” Shiv must choose her words carefully now. Anything and everything can be turned into a test if dad puts his mind to it, as she’s been made aware since her fifth birthday. “I know the flight itinerary is not ideal, and dad, trust me, if I can get to New York the night before, I would. But you know how mom is, if I try to make any last-minute changes for her birthday, I can’t—”

“Don’t be late,” he says before hanging up. Her heart is still pounding, her throat feels tight, and she wants to punch something. He knows damn well how this works, how she grits her teeth under her mother’s thumb. How it’s worked since she was sixteen, when she said yes to take nothing short of a bullet for him on the negotiating table, for the pretty price of however many dollars and pounds to be shaved off the alimony payment. Like most everything in her life at this point, it’s twisted against her now, since the offer at the Hamptons. Or maybe that’s actually her, getting twisted against everything and everyone around her; perhaps the difference is negligible.

Shiv looks at herself in the mirror, checks her face one last time before walking out to face her mother. She finds herself contemplating about a motorcycle chauffeur, the one with Kendall.

✤

For a few days afterwards, Tern Haven is all that occupy Shiv’s thoughts. Not so much the implosion, the words crashing into smithereens in the deafening silence at that dinner table, but everything she said to Tom in the hallway before. Is it still a mistake, if you’ve run all other possibilities in your head and can’t come up with anything you would have done differently? She fucked it, fine, but her hand was forced. At the very least Shiv went into it fully clear-eyed, and the cold shoulder she’s been given as punishment now is really because she would not go quietly and bend over for the farce of making nice. Tom could be her witness, he heard her every word.

Her thoughts are the only things still transparent to her, in the weeks that follow. And she’s had enough thoughts to fill her days, even though she goes into Waystar twice a week or less. Her shadowing with Frank continues into audit season, her inbox starts filling with drafts of spreadsheets and data visualization. She marks all of them as read without opening the attachments, because none of it fucking matters anyway.

Shiv thinks she might as well have become a shadow, in Logan’s eyes. The look he gave her, his full attention weighing down on her through his downcast eyes, the wine glass thrumming in his hand. The sound echoes in her thoughts, her dreams, her nightmares. She thinks about what was done to her, how in a moment, everything that makes a person real can unravel and come undone, in a split hair of a difference. She thinks about what Logan must have done to Kendall, behind closed doors. What must be coming for her, down the pipe, drawn by the gravitational force.

With Argestes approaching, Tom says something to her about networking and deal-making, hides in the guest bathroom to practice his little ATN speech, tries to shield anything with Argestes branding in their apartment from her sight. “I’m sorry, Shiv,” he apologizes to her, on the morning of, after saying bye to Mondale.

She just smiles, plants a kiss on him. Her contempt for being the wife, perhaps not unlike her mother’s contempt for being the mother, is only for the lack of challenge. There’s just nothing more to it.

✤

“Rhea,” Shiv calls out. Through Colin, Logan has instructed everyone to stay put at the roast table; she follows Rhea out into the open corridor anyway. The heavy doors swing shut behind them. Between the wooden columns and the hazy overhead lights, they are almost enveloped in darkness, finally insulated from the noise and laughter inside.

They stand there, in momentary silence. Shiv is not sure how close she should get. Rhea looks pale, drained of her usual bright-eyed springy energy. A few long strands of her bangs fall across her face, listlessly obscuring the look in her eyes.

“How is he?” Shiv asks. After the panel, the backhanded slap dealt to Roman for her indiscreet choice of that word, the jokes that had Logan and Rhea chasing Nan out the door, the near guttural screams that were audible to the crowd indoors, she has to know. She has no one else to ask.

“He’s with Gerri and Laird. The deal is dead.”

“Well, can we still fix it? Do you want me to talk to Nan? Because—”

“Siobhan,” the way her name comes out of Rhea’s mouth sounds like a stern warning, the syllables stretched out and strained by an unknowable weight. “Now is not the time to think only about yourself.”

Shiv can’t quite stretch her mouth into a smile. Her hands are balled into fists in her coat pockets. “I spent my capital, like you advised. I expect returns.”

“I did everything in good faith.” Rhea brushes the hair away from her eyes; for a moment, Shiv isn’t quite sure if that response was addressed to her. Still, the shadows cover half of her face, as she is turned slightly askew from Shiv. There is no mistaking the grim, downturned line of her thin lips.

Sensing tension, Shiv laughs almost instinctively. “I wish I can trust my dad to be the same, Rhea. I mean, you said it. If he can’t buy Pierce, he could lose control.”

“Your dad…” Rhea pauses for a beat. “Your dad’s tough. But he might feel the walls closing in on him, now, faster and more tightly than he thought. He would appreciate your patience and understanding, I think.”

“He—” Shiv feels the flash of anger surging up in her chest. She digs her nails deeper into her palms and starts again. “That’s what he wants from _you_ , Rhea. If I’m going to be next, I can’t allow myself to be sidelined. I made a mistake on the panel today, I know, but I can’t dwell on that. He smells any hang-ups from me, that’s it, it will be used against me.”

Rhea smiles. She raises her eyes, finally, and Shiv feels her eyes being met with a distant, ambivalent knowingness. “It makes all the difference in the world, to own for yourself and to own through somebody else. Even, and especially, if that other person is family.”

Shiv looks away. The night sky is starless, shrouded in clouds. It may be irrational and vehement, but she resents the notion that someone working for a family like the Pierces could apply that knowledge seamless to her family, like it's just some sort of transferrable skill belonging a resume or a LinkedIn page.

“This one time, I think I was, what, fourteen? I was with my dad, on an investors meeting trip, in Tokyo. We had lunch somewhere, it was a scorching hot day in June, and I wore a sundress. Some tabloid was dogging us, because my dad had finally filed for divorce against my mom after eight years of separation, all the gossip columnists were buzzing like flies. The next day, they published photos of me on my dad’s arm, out and about at the restaurant and hotel lobby. His face was clearly visible in all of them, I was nothing but a torso and legs. They put in subheadings and captions saying shit like Logan Roy caught with his new one abroad in Asia.”

She takes a beat, draws a deep breath, and closes her eyes for a moment. The air hits cold and harsh in her throat, in her lungs. She can feel Rhea’s eyes, fixed on her still. “I used to think it’s funny, how some of my dad’s business contacts jumped to conclusions about who I am when he first brought me with him to those types of things. I thought it was funny because my dad always laughed, it amused him to play the charade, the double entendre, at least get a quick joke or two in there before introducing me properly. When he saw those photos in Tokyo, he laughed just the same. I didn’t say anything, except I never wore that dress again.”

“Did that play into your decision to go into politics?” Rhea asks quietly.

“I thought it was the right play. For me, from the get-go. Roman was a dipshit but, Kendall. I wasn’t even asked.”

“But politics, specifically. It’s in the balance, no? The ties between our business and the government, who sits in which chair,” Rhea steps closer towards her. She sounds genuinely curious, which can’t be all there is to this. “It’s a safe distance. You are outside, you are free to expand the connections your family might need. Why give that up?”

“Uh…” Shiv furrows her brows. “Is that what this is about? Another test of commitment from dad?”

“No,” Rhea’s voice goes quiet, barely above a whisper. “I thought we can have a real conversation.”

“Uh-huh, thank you,” Shiv laughs. “I’m really happy and grateful that dad asked me to come in, Rhea. Not just to work for him but, you know, to be the future of this organization. I’m the best person for the job, I still am.” She puts emphasis on the last three words, all too aware of what Rhea has seen from her.

“I know how it must have been hard for you, waiting in the wings, especially as a young woman. Argestes wasn’t what your dad hoped it would be, maybe it wasn’t what you hoped for either, but if you are serious about leaving politics to get into the media business for good—this was the right thing to do, to get exposure. Not for your dad, not for Waystar, but for you. Look, your dad is a smart guy. I’ve never doubted that he chose you for a reason, and I know you have big plans for the family firm. Help him see that.”

Shiv looks over. There’s something that looks like warmth in Rhea’s eyes. It’s unfamiliar, but not unsettling. She wonders if this is Rhea Jarrell’s version of a real conversation; the woman card is a bit trite.

“So you’re done, with Pierce?”

“Might be more accurate to say they are done with me,” Rhea chuckles, humorless. “They’re setting the dogs on me tomorrow, since we are already past Nan’s bedtime.”

Shiv nods, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Rhea reaches up to Shiv, as if to whisper something in her ear, but she only rests her hand on Shiv’s shoulder. There’s a real smile on her face, now, that familiar glint of cat-like cunning. “It’s fine, no one will stop them setting the cousins loose into the boardrooms now. Don’t you know they are all experts on what’s best for the family?”

And with that, Shiv can’t help smiling back.

✤

Shiv starts counting down the days of radio silence from Logan, since Argestes. Hours turn to days, to weeks, to a flurry of vague and elusive replies from Logan’s roster of assistants, to the quiet dread that fills her when she looks at herself in the mirror every morning. She hears about her dad at the dinner table with Tom and text messages from Roman to which she responds with the middle finger emoji. Kendall is the one that truly sits comfortable in dad’s pocket, high as a kite on most days, but if Shiv must, she’d rather talk to Jess instead.

Rhea’s words stick with her: _help him see that_. In the absence of any other advice she can stomach, Shiv opens her laptop after two glasses of wine and starts typing. Pivot to center—she’d done a similar strategy plan for Gil way back when, and the plug-and-play is easily done. She writes the first draft and sends it off to be edited and formatted like a business memo, and for the first time since the night before her wedding, Shiv goes to bed feeling lighter.

The invitation for the seasonal soiree comes from Kerry, not Marcia as was customary in past years, which is just the cherry on top as far as Shiv is concerned. She sends the formatted PDF to Logan two days before, and the stage is set: she will use the memo to break the ice with Logan, and it will naturally transition to the casual question of whether it’s still her, and if so, when she will get to do something other than reading magazines in Frank and Gerri’s offices.

Of course, it won’t be in those words. She will help him see the correct answer, steer him to it if she must. The missteps at Tern Haven and Argestes will be buried, overwritten, and forgotten. They must be. You make your own reality if you want to win the game.

✤

It turns out that those exact words thrashed out of her mouth in front of Logan, and then some. They all poured out of her along with frantic hand gestures that afternoon, in the dark mahogany country villa. Dad skewered her cleanly through, in not so many words about family, about never running away, about owing her something that he never planned on giving.

She thinks about Rhea, after, with the metaphoric sharp end of Logan’s indictment poking out of her chest and the metaphoric blood stain seeping through her pristine white blouse. She sits in that room a while, to take stock of Rhea. _He’s been kind, he’s been kind to me. People don’t talk about his kindness_. Shiv didn’t try to hide her surprise at that comment—Rhea, preaching about her dad’s kindness, to the choir girl who grew up under the thumb of that kindness. She thought about everything she told Rhea, shielded by the darkness in that corridor; how it made her feel safe, to say everything out loud.

There was relief in release then, and there is relief in release now. Shiv feels it in her bones, in this very moment. She’d forced Logan’s hand to deal her the harshest indictment of failure, but that’s what she needed to be free, on the icy bleakness of solid ground. She was dulled by wrapping herself up in the security of single-minded planning, of setting up the dominos and being so scared of them falling in any way other than the way she was promised. She’s wounded, but stronger for it; she will not be cocooned again. She is absolved.

Calling Kendall is the first thing that comes to her mind, when she picks herself up to get into the car. Shiv can’t explain it. It would be easier to say she simply didn’t think twice. As always, he picks up her call without a beat.

“I think I got fucked,” is how Shiv chooses to describe it. Saying it that way feels like there can be a certain degree of absolution afforded to herself, thereby somehow ingratiating herself to a feasible alliance. If there’s an easier way to do this, she would, like teleporting onto the jet and throwing Rhea overboard.

She gets into the weeds of things from there, the drop trap Rhea set for her, the bait of empathy-laced bad advice that started with the night at Argestes and ended with the meeting in London. From the other end of the line, she hears rustling of clothes and movement, followed by the click of a lock.

“I just—” Shiv runs a hand through her hair in frustration. She doesn’t want to end her side of the story by asking for Kendall’s input, because she will not ask Kendall for anything. “I played right into her hands. She wants the top job from dad, there’s no other reason for why she’s doing this to me. She doesn’t get to fucking leapfrog over me, you, Frank, Gerri.”

“Uh-huh,” Kendall says, again, so her saga about Rhea is bookended by the one thing that can mean anything in their world. They sit in silence for a few seconds, Kendall breathing evenly as Shiv holds hers in. “And why do you want me to know about this, Shiv?”

“Because you are—you’ve been—” she winces, almost on reflex, before finishing the sentence. “You’re the one in a good place with dad right now. You can help him see that, right?”

“Uh-huh,” he says, a third time. There is a healthy chance that the drugs in his system have tipped the balance too much towards the unable-to-function-properly side, but Shiv wouldn’t know.

“Ken, come on.” She says, with a deep exhale.

“It’s not a good place, Shiv. Not really,” the words come out slow and quiet over the low hum of jet engines, squeeze tightly something within her.

“Fine, okay. But he still needs you.” She bites back half of what she means to say: _he needs you in a way that he doesn’t need or want me._

“Sure. I’ll keep an eye out,” Kendall concedes to her without investment.

“Just be careful, okay? I haven’t—forgotten. Help me take care of you, okay?”

To her own shock, the words roll off her tongue easily, in place of a thank-you. She is almost taken aback by her own sincerity, or the approximation thereof.

“Uh-huh,” he says it to Shiv with teeth and weight this last time, before he hangs up. It leaves her breath caught in her throat, as if it should have any hold over her.

✤

The mere conduit, the mercenary, the wool of lust pulled over her dad’s cyclops eye. The bane of her existence, at least for an evening or two, Rhea Jarrell.

Shiv managed to give Rhea a taste of her own medicine, the sugar-coated bad advice at Dundee. Attempts at alliance-building with Marcia and her brothers turned out to be underwhelming, but it was fine; Rhea already did most of the damage herself. People who have everything to lose tend to lose the fastest in their world—if nothing else, Shiv knows that better than Rhea.

She called up her own PI contacts, and tasked Ratfucker Sam to fill in for the rest. Rhea’s mother, the teetotalism, Shiv didn’t even have to play all the cards in her hand, and it still played out too easy on home advantage. Regardless, she gets what she needs.

“Siobhan, you don’t have to do this,” there’s that sheen of genuine concern in Rhea’s voice and eyes again, after they pull up to the playground—so the hired gun would refuse to have its trigger squeezed. If there is time to savor that moment, Shiv may have told her a different story about how taking herself out of play is not an option, the little bit of Logan embedded in each and every one of his children that goes beyond competing for the gold star. But from Rhea’s point of view, it probably just looks like a lack of imagination and self-destructive naiveite of silver-spoon fuckups. The pity is mutual: she doesn’t expect Rhea to understand that, either.

“Thanks, Rhea,” Shiv smiles back at her as she steps out of the car. The gold plating on Rhea has chipped away, at last; the material underneath is not made of sterner stuff than her, not in the only sense that matters. The knowledge is secured, close to her heart; it steadies her hands, voice, gaze, to do what she must in everything that comes next.

✤

“I paid a girl on here. It was supposed to be a gift to myself, for taking Rhea out.”

Of all things, Shiv opens with this. After nightfall, they are alone in this corner of the yacht, Kendall reading his tablet with his headphones on, under the soft yellow light with his legs stretched across the cushioned seats. She’s just come down the stairs from the upper deck suite, her silhouette half hidden in the shadows. She stands at the bottom of the stairs, not proceeding further until Kendall removes his headphones and turns towards her.

She hasn’t changed out of the blue jumpsuit she wore to dinner, the meal she barely touched. It doesn’t feel right anymore, putting anything into her body from this yacht.

“It’s perhaps morally objectionable to speak about women who work for us like champagne to be uncorked, Shiv.”

Shiv smiles, plops herself down on a chair next to Kendall, “Sorry.” She hates the way she says it, how the word darts out of her like a cop-out. If she believes she can do any better, she would have tried harder.

Kendall sets his things aside, shifts towards her. There is clarity in his eyes, but with stability and lightness; like a sharp tool in the hands of someone who knows how to wield it, for once. She thinks he’s sober, but he was never like this when he was sober, before. Shiv recognizes this weightlessness, and it stings her to see it in Kendall, to be reminded of her own loss of absolution.

Shiv runs a hand through her hair, and the wind still sends those longer strands flying in her face. “I was thinking that since you’re flying out tomorrow morning, it might be good to do something to take the edge off, if you’re not gonna sleep anyway. I have to work through some stuff with Tom, so my plans with her are cancelled for good,” she rubs under her nose, shakes her head and props her hand under her jawline, a gesture that was both too vague and too much. “She might ask for a bonus for a last-minute swap like this, but, you know, I’ll get her to renegotiate.”

Kendall chuckles—she gets a laugh out of him, finally. “Are you okay? With Tom?”

Shiv shrugs. “I don’t know. He’s sleeping in one of the offices tonight, uh, dad needs to finish some stuff with him and Greg before morning.”

“He’s a good man, Shiv.”

She looks up at Kendall, eyes wide. He must feel her eyes fixed on him, but his look is distant, cast only towards the sea, the gentle waves rocking beneath them. Kendall wasn’t there on the morning of her wedding day in that carriage, of course. So this is the penance deemed for her. One of her best, unadulterated memories in private with her father, forever stained by what she’d let happen to her brother—this point of coalescence an inkwell spilled onto her wedding dress. The weight of dread that followed her since she left Logan’s suite in DC, which she’d been able to convince herself as the headiness of power up until tonight, rears its ugly head at last.

“Yeah,” Shiv draws her feet up to the cushioned seat, hugs her knees close. “You know the last Christmas we spent together with mom and dad? I asked for a little sister, and Roman peeked at my letter. And then he told me, when they separated the year after, that it was because I asked them for something that they can’t just _get_ me. They don’t want to deal with me anymore because I’m a spoiled brat who only thought of herself, so they’ve got to split up.”

She hears a small laugh from Kendall. Everything about him, since dinner, is unbearably gentle, but she thinks if she gets too close, she will be scalded. He would have been easy to avoid, and she did not look over at him once over dinner, and yet here she is, doing the icebreaker trying too hard to be cheeky, and now the memory lane. She’s very tired, more tired than the clichés.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it, today. What Roman said about that Christmas. I think he might be right,” she lifts her arms to gather her hair back, corral the rebel strands behind her shoulders. “And I don’t have the excuse of being a dumb kid anymore.”

“We were kids. He just said that to make you cry.”

“I know,” she bites her bottom lip. “Doesn’t make it less true, if it is. If I am.”

“You are not.” He doesn’t slur over the words.

Shiv pushes her hands down on her sides, her nails digging into the cushion. “You don’t know what I did.”

Kendall sighs. He looks over at her, at last, extends a hand towards her. “It’s not a crime to take yourself out of play.”

When she puts her hand into his and feel their fingers curl around one another, she feels the warmth of his pull, and for a moment she could almost believe she is the one chosen to be drowned. She’s the one already underwater, dreaming about the lifeline she could have taken. Through his touch she can feel the lightness returning to her, and she thinks about herself, begging Logan on that couch. What she should have, could have told Kendall that night in DC, if she’d thought about taking care of him then. Does it absolve her, the fact that it wouldn’t have turned out differently without her complicity? Is it still a mistake?

“I don’t—” she takes a long exhale, waves her other hand as if to bat away an invisible fly. “I don’t mean to make this about me, Ken.”

“It’s about all of us, Shiv. It always has been.”

She feels a squeeze around her fingers. The yellow-orange lights of night fishing boats flicker near the horizon stretched out before them. She tastes a tinge of sea salt on the tip of her tongue. Like that day in the country villa, she knows the answer to the question she has wanted to ask all along.

“Is there anything I can say, to make this better?”

“No, I don’t think so. Not for me, or you. But,” he says _but_ like it’s a crack down the shell of an egg, like he has changed something in a way that cannot be undone. “Words are just complicated airflow.”

Shiv furrows her brows a bit, doesn’t pretend to understand what he means. They sit in silence for a while; it doesn't feel any less complicated. 

✤

In the morning, Roman comes over to sit with Shiv at breakfast, for a change. She’s been showered, dressed, and sitting at the table since sunrise. The bags under Roman’s eyes tell a similar story.

“Hey, did you talk to Ken after dinner?”

“Uh-huh. He said he was fine, I think.”

“I would have asked all of us,” Roman points in Connor’s general direction towards the couches somewhere, “but I didn’t think either of us would have it in us to explain to Connor what jail is and why Ken might be going there.”

Shiv nods, taps her phone a few more times, then turns it over face-down. “Yeah. Do you want my French toast?”

Roman frowns. “Why? Did you drool on it?”

She snorts, despite herself. “You’re not worth the effort.” It’s just good to pre-empt; you can’t throw up on an empty stomach.

Roman rolls his eyes, before pulling the plate towards himself. For a moment Shiv imagines doing something more, like putting a hand on Roman’s shoulder, or telling him she’s around to talk, if he wants to, after. She would like to be a conduit, she thinks, to transmit to Roman how she’d felt, sitting with Kendall the night before. Dredge it up from herself somehow, the gentleness that could burn hot to the touch. Of being able to forgive.

She looks at Roman until he looks up from his phone, not quick enough to avert before he catches her eyes, puzzled. Looking down and away from him, Shiv pushes her chair back, stands up and walks towards the TV lounge without another word. The deck is warm under her feet, the heat of the sun bears down on her back. She walks through the glass door and into acceptance.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs I listened to while planning and writing: Humiliation, Graceless, and Oblivions by The National, in that order.


End file.
